The fast-growing electric car company has repaid the entire $465 million loan it received from the U.S. Department of Energy, in a vindication for company co-founder Elon Musk, the billionaire mogul and rocket-ship enthusiast. The loan repayment, made nine years ahead of schedule, was completed Wednesday when Tesla wired $451.8 million to the federal government.

Tesla’s loan was part of the government’s 2010 Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, a $25 billion fund authorized by Congress, signed by President George W. Bush, and awarded under President Obama. The loan program, which was separate from the U.S. auto bailouts to GM and Chrysler under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), was designed to get fuel-efficient vehicles to consumers faster.

With its loan payment, made using a portion of the $1 billion it raised last week in a stock and debt offering, Tesla becomes the only American car manufacturer in the DOE program to have fully repaid the government, the company said. “Today’s repayment is the latest indication that the Energy Department’s portfolio of more than 30 loans is delivering big results for the American economy while costing far less than anticipated,” U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement. “Today, Tesla employs more than 3,000 American workers and is living proof of the power of American innovation.”

The loan repayment is a major victory for Tesla, which was branded as a “loser” company by Mitt Romney during his unsuccessful 2012 Republican presidential campaign. “I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the ATVM program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” Musk said in a statement. “I hope we did you proud.”

Founded in 2003, Tesla was originally funded entirely with private funds, led by Musk, a billionaire who co-founded PayPal. For many years the company struggled to gain traction, because building a car company from scratch is extremely capital-intensive. As recently as last year, Tesla was still hemorrhaging cash, losing $89.9 million in the first quarter of 2012.

But this year, Tesla’s business has accelerated, thanks in part to the success of the company’s Model S vehicle, its most affordable offering. Tesla recently reported its first profitable quarter, and Consumer Reports gave the Model S a near-perfect rating of 99 out of 100 points. So far this year, Tesla’s stock price has soared by 171%, which helped drive the company’s recent billion dollar stock and debt offering. The company is working to bring its next car, a sport utility vehicle called the Model X, to market in the next few years.

“My hat’s off to them,” Ford Motor executive chairman Bill Ford said at his company’s annual meeting recently. “It’s really hard to start a company, particularly in the auto business, and be successful.”

Tesla’s loan repayment is a big boost for the still-nascent U.S. electric car industry. “While the market has taken longer than predicted to get going, sales of electric vehicles in the U.S. tripled last year and are continuing to increase rapidly in 2013,” said Moniz, the U.S. Energy Secretary. “Tesla and other U.S. manufacturers are in a strong position to compete for this growing global market.”

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This is all find and dandy, but how does any of this directly affect you and me? It doesn't because we (the average auto buyer) can't afford to pay for a Tesla vehicle. So, beyond them paying back a government loan (in essence repaying us the taxpayer) then this really is of no concern. I don't drive a Tesla vehicle and no one in the town I live in owns one - can you really afford to continue to be ignorant of the facts, fed political lies to fuel their cause, and accept all of it as fact because you read in a magazine or heard it on TV. Wake up America - learn the real truth!

Did everyone not realize that TESLA paying off it's car loan allowed Elon MUsk to release a huge portion of his profit. Typical Wall Street move, the dirt is in the details. With the DOE loan Musk had to (not by choice) tie up a significant portion of his networth and couldn't get out. Now that he paid it off, he has the ability to "cash out", like he just did with the bond offering. Another great example of an insider cashing out at the expense of momentum chasers

So disappointed in not finding a store here in Missouri. Not surprising. This state is so far behind on environmental issues, it's pathetic. They seem to have the mentality that they can hold back climate change by retreating into a cave and declaring science is wrong. We should be doing everything we can to make these vehicles available to the public.

I'd like to have one, but not if I can't have a dealer near me. Have to get a Chevy Volt I guess.

Elon Musk Paid off the doe loan in order to shut up the uneducated skeptical critics of tesla motors. Elon Musk is better then you. Elon musk is better then me. He is smarter. He is richer. He is more accomplished. More educated. He is a genius of both the sciences and business. Thats not just my opinion. Thats also the opinion of nasa. That is also the opinion of mr. toyoda himself, who said 'I love this guy' and then gave him the 1 billion dollar numi factory for FREE in exchange for a licensing agreement. The business model of tesla motors is not to build cars for the 1%. The goal has always been the same. Create a new type of vehicle to replace mainstream vehicles that are powered by a finite source. In order to do so there needs to first be cars like the tesla roadster and model s. These vehicles may be expensive but computers were also very expensive 20 years ago. Today computers are wide spread because early adopters bought in to them. Elon musk plans to use the success and technology from the model s and tesla roadster in order to eventually build a line of mass produced emmision free vehicles that everyone will be able to own. How hard is that to understand????? Elon could have taken his quarter billion dollars earned from the sale of his company called paypal and retired on an island. Instead he put it all on the line to help better mankind.

"Loser no more!?" Implying that, at some point, Tesla was a loser? Entirely false. Tesla has been a clean energy success story from day 1. Paying off their loan 9 years early is a clear win, this headline notwithstanding.

The interest that Tesla on this loan payed the U.S. taxpayer over $20 million. Not bad.

- Of the five car
companies that received loans from the program, including Ford Motor Co. and
Nissan North America, Tesla Motors became the first to have fully repaid the
federal government under the Department of Energy‘s Advanced Technology Vehicle
Manufacturing program. (Source: San Francisco Chronicle, http://bit.ly/10MPJnS)

- Paying off the
DOE Loan earned American taxpayers between $15 million and $20 million,
according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The Energy Department puts the profit at
closer to $26 million. (Source: Bloomberg Businessweek, http://buswk.co/12YDfwg)

- The Department of
Energy Loan Guarantee Program has an approximately 97% success rate. As of late
July, 2012, Solyndra, Abound Solar and the handful of other DOE-backed
renewable energy companies that went bankrupt represented total investments of
less than 3% of the entire DOE portfolio. (Source: U.S. Department of
Energy, April 2013, http://1.usa.gov/Nv1OeU)

The starting price for a Tesla Model S is $62k. If they are successful, then they will no doubt make both lower and higher priced car models. They have provided jobs and repaid their government loan. Average consumers have many different options, that's not why the money was lent. Car technology advancement ALWAYS starts on high end models. It was a decade before anti-lock brakes and other advancements migrated down to affordable models.

For once, things have worked out thus far. No need to try and make this a downer story too.